♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -Welcome to "America's Test Kitchen" at home.

Today, I'm making a spectacular sandwich -- pan bagnat.

Jack tells us all about shopping for supermarket tuna, and Lan's making an elegant Salade Lyonnaise.

We've got so much in store for you today, so stick around.

♪♪ ♪♪ -When was the last time you said, "Oh, my.

This tuna sandwich is magnificent?"

Probably never, unless you've had pan bagnat.

This is a tuna sandwich that comes from the Provence region of France, and it's basically a salad Niçoise on bread and so much more.

It's gonna blow your mind.

I'm gonna show you how great this sandwich could be.

So I've got here a red onion.

I'm gonna cut it in half.

Alright.

So I need to slice this nice and thin.

So now these are going to go into a bowl.

I'm going to add one minced garlic clove.

Let's wham that right in there.

Alright, so that looks great.

Now we want to soften the flavor of the onion, but also soften its texture a little bit.

So I'm going to use some red wine vinegar, 3 tablespoons of it, and just toss the onion with the vinegar.

And that needs a little bit of time to soften.

The next component -- tomato.

I'm gonna core it.

Just take my paring knife, go in at an angle, just like that.

And I'm gonna slice this nice and thin as well, similar to the onion.

So you can use a very sharp knife to slice, or if you find that your knife isn't that sharp, you can use a serrated knife.

It's beautiful for slicing tomatoes.

So in order to dry off a little bit more of the moisture, I'm going to put these tomato slices onto a paper-towel-lined plate.

So while we have our bread knife out anyway, how about we cut some bread?

And we're using a baguette here.

Now, often, traditionally, this sandwich is made on individual rolls or small batards, but we're using a baguette so we can really contain all of the fillings that we're gonna put in.

And you want to look for a baguette that's about 18 inches long, about 3 inches wide, 2 inches tall.

I'm gonna slice it.

It's always a good idea to use a really good quality bread.

And now, to really contain everything inside there, we're gonna take out a lot of this interior.

You can use your fingers, you can use a sharp spoon.

But I want to keep about a quarter-inch border around the edge and the bottom of the baguette.

So I'm making a bread trough here.

And this is really gonna contain everything that we're going to put in it.

I'm just gonna score the bread a little bit.

I'm not going all the way through.

It makes it a little easier for it to be removed.

Alright.

So that's looking pretty good there.

Now, I am not going to do the same with the top part of this baguette here.

Really, I just wanted to do the bottom, create kind of a baguette boat.

Alright.

So these are going to go onto a rimmed baking sheet, and I'm gonna put this into a 350-degree oven until they just start to get a little bit toasty.

That's gonna take about five minutes.

♪♪ Alright, that looks great... and sounds a little toasty.

So I'm just gonna leave that to cool for a few minutes.

Now, pan bagnat has this beautiful flavor -- all of Niçoise.

It has olives and capers, anchovies, lots of herbs.

Rather than add all of those components separately, we're going to make a salad.

So the first thing that I'm gonna do is prep a little bit of parsley.

I need 1/2 cup of parsley leaves and the tender stems.

So I'll just start shaving some of these off here.

Alright, and gather these up.

And I'm not doing the chopping.

My food processor is.

Again, that's 1/2 cup, and I can't remember the last time I was cooking with marjoram, but this is definitely an occasion for it.

So I need 2 tablespoons of marjoram leaves.

I'm just running my fingers down the stems to pop them off as I go.

Some of the tender stems in there are fine, too.

That's one.

That looks like another tablespoon there.

Now for some more traditional flavors as well, I've got capers and anchovies.

This is 3 tablespoons of capers and 3 anchovy filets.

I rinsed them and then patted the anchovies dry.

And, of course, we need olives.

So we're using Niçoise olives.

Beautiful.

This is 3/4 cup, all pitted.

So I'm gonna put these right into the food processor as well.

I am going to pulse this until the mixture is pretty coarse, but it's evenly chopped.

That's going to take anywhere between 10 to 12 pulses.

I'll have a spatula on standby just in case I need to scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Alright, so we're gonna take this mixture out, and I'm going to add it to our vinegar-onion mixture.

This smells like magic.

You're gonna want to add this to everything from now on.

Alright.

Just gonna toss this mixture.

The onions have softened just a little bit, and that's perfect.

That's what we want.

And this looks great.

So it wouldn't be a salad without a little bit of olive oil.

I've got extra virgin olive oil.

I'm going to add 1/4 cup.

Alright.

This is a cup measure.

I just filled it a quarter of the way.

Right in.

And 2 tablespoons of Dijon mustard.

One tablespoon and two.

And now all I need to do is toss this mixture.

And a final ingredient -- a little bit of pepper, about 1/4 teaspoon.

And that's all we need to do for now.

I'm just going to clean up before we move on.

It is time to assemble our sandwich.

So let me go ahead and bring up my toasted baguette.

Now before I start adding any ingredients to the bread, I'm going to waterproof it -- sort of waterproof it -- with a little bit of olive oil.

Again, that extra virgin olive oil.

I need about 2 tablespoons in total.

And I'm going to start to brush -- Oh!

-- this olive oil over the interior of the bread here, about a tablespoon per side.

And this is really going to help prevent some of the moisture that's still in those other ingredients from making the bread too soggy.

Alright.

Just push that up a little bit here.

I'm gonna restir my olive mixture.

Oh, those onions just get softer and softer the more they wait.

Now, remember this bottom layer here, the little moat, I'm going to pile in some of our olive and onion mixture.

About 2/3 of it goes in.

Spread this out into an even layer.

If we hadn't dug out that interior of the bread, all of this would be sitting kind of proud up on top of the bread.

Alright.

So now how about we put some tuna on our sandwich?

I've got two 6 1/2-ounce jars of tuna packed in oil that I've already gone ahead and drained.

And I'm gonna break apart the tuna but still leaving a few chunks.

We're gonna put a lot of tuna in this sandwich.

Alright, next up, a little bit more oil, another 2 tablespoons should do it.

Gonna drizzle this right over our tuna.

Oh!

After that, tomatoes.

Start shingling them on our sandwich here, just overlapping them.

Alright.

Now...eggs.

I'm gonna use hard-cooked eggs here.

I've got three that I've already cooked and peeled and sliced thin.

Same thing as the tomato.

Just gonna shingle these right on top.

It's okay if the eggs break apart a little bit.

That's okay.

Alright.

And you can get our hard-cooked egg recipe on our website.

And now I'm gonna pile on the remaining third of our olive mixture.

Alright.

Now the top goes back on.

I'll try to match it to the bottom half, and some will crumble out, that is okay.

I'm gonna press down just a bit here.

And now I'm gonna use my serrated bread knife to cut this in half.

Just take your time.

Now, it'll be really difficult to eat these as is, so we're gonna weigh them down and compact them.

It's gonna be much easier to eat later on.

Take out a sheet of plastic wrap.

We're gonna wrap each of these individually.

Nice and tightly.

So we've got these on a rimmed baking sheet.

I'm gonna put a second baking sheet on top, and we want to weigh these down to press them to compact all of those fillings inside.

And it also makes everything just taste better with every bite.

Now, you could put a couple of 5-pound bags right on top of here or if you have a handy toddler hanging around.

But I'm gonna go get my Dutch oven.

There we go.

Let's make sure it's balanced.

So I'm gonna leave this Dutch oven right on top, and I'm gonna weigh down these sandwiches for a minimum of an hour.

♪♪ Oh, look what an hour does.

It's really flattened the sandwich quite a bit.

So now it's time to eat.

Now, you can cut these in half.

I'm gonna cut them in thirds, though, but you could also cut them a little smaller.

Letting the knife do the work here.

Look how beautiful that is.

You can see all of those layers.

Look how gorgeous.

Mmm.

It's hard to know what to talk about first.

But that olive salad and the onions in there that are just soft enough that I can still taste them.

You get a little bit of the anchovy.

Of course, the tuna is really soft and supple.

That is, I would say, a majestic tuna fish sandwich.

So to make this exquisite sandwich at home, make a bread trough to contain all of the components, create an olive salad using the food processor, and waterproof the bread by brushing it with olive oil.

So from "America's Test Kitchen" at home, the sandwich to end all sandwiches -- the French pan bagnat.

♪♪ -We're gonna talk tuna, and I'm gonna tell you what you need to know.

Before we start, Mom, if you're watching TV, I want you to turn off the set right now.

Okay, good.

My mother's not here, so I can tell you, I hated tuna fish when I was a kid, and I had it all the time.

It was packed in water and mixed with a lot of mayonnaise and slathered on sandwiches.

And I really just didn't like it at all.

But I changed my mind when I discovered tuna packed in olive oil.

It was like a light bulb went off.

Suddenly, "Oh, yeah, canned tuna -- what a handy thing to have in the pantry.

There's so many things you can do with it."

So let's dig in.

Let me tell you what you want to be looking for and why.

So let's start with the stuff packed in water, because I know a lot of you out there probably like tuna salad and like tuna-salad sandwiches.

You want to be starting, first of all, by thinking about the fish, so it can be labeled white or light.

If it's labeled white, it's usually from albacore or yellowfin.

It's gonna be milder-tasting.

If it's labeled light, it's gonna be from stronger-tasting fish -- skipjack or bluefin.

Unless you want a fishy fish, stick with the white.

Next up, you want to be looking for the words either "line caught" or "pole caught."

So this is a more humane alternative to nets.

It's also better tasting.

The fish are less stressed.

And so really want to make sure that you're buying pole caught like our winner here, American Tuna -- This is the winner of the brands packed in water -- or line caught.

The biggest difference here about all of these brands and what we learned is that tuna needs to be cooked once, not twice.

So here's what the deal is.

All of these are pressure-cooked.

So they put the tuna into the can or the jars, and for safety reasons, it's got to be cooked.

But if the tuna goes in raw, meaning that it's cooked just once, it's gonna come out much moister.

Some companies cook the tuna, put it in the can, and then cook it again.

That's a recipe for really dry tuna.

A lot of those low-rated brands then add vegetable broth, thinking, "Oh, maybe we can trick somebody into thinking that this isn't dry, horrible tuna fish."

Doesn't work.

It just makes it soggy.

So if you're gonna buy tuna packed in water, you should buy either our winner, American Tuna, or the runner-up, StarKist.

But let's get really excited.

Let's talk about the good stuff -- the stuff packed in olive oil.

And can I just say, if it's packed in vegetable oil, don't bother.

Why do you want vegetable oil when you can have olive oil?

I've got our co-winners here, Tonnino and Ortiz.

Just look how meaty these are.

And they taste as good as they look.

They're moist, they're rich.

They're not overly fishy.

They will get you excited about making pasta with tuna.

Really wonderful salads, sandwiches.

So I've changed my mind about tuna.

And it's time for you to change your mind, too.

Enjoy.

♪♪ -Salade Lyonnaise.

I have a hard time saying that properly, but I'm great at making it and I'm even better at eating it.

It features three of my favorite things -- bitter greens, cured pork, and a soft-cooked egg.

Now, the salad features frisée, and that's what I have here.

This is about a 6-ounce head, and it's delicious.

It's also really easy to prepare.

I'm gonna start with a pair of scissors and all I am looking to do here is to cut this into bite-sized pieces.

You could tear this if you wanted to, but I think shears make it a lot easier.

So I'll set this aside, and I will wash these in a second.

But before I do, let's get to the other greens.

I've got chicory here to add a little complexity and some vibrancy to the salad, and you'll need about 5 ounces.

You're just going to rip it up into bite-sized pieces.

I kind of ditch the thick, woody stem.

It's not great.

Right.

So this is the last of it.

Next up is the pork.

Now, if I were in Lyon, I'd be using a local cured pork belly called ventrèche.

But since I'm not, the closest I can find is pancetta.

It makes a great substitute.

This is about 5 ounces of pancetta, and I'm just cutting it into thirds.

Instead of buying the precut stuff, I went to the deli and I asked for a nice slab of it.

It'll just cook up a lot nicer.

And then cutting it into about quarter-inch-thick pieces.

This pork is going right into a 10-inch nonstick skillet, and I am gonna go wash my hands.

Now, instead of just frying this, I'm actually gonna cook this using a two-step method.

First, I'm gonna add 2 cups of water and bring this to a boil over medium-high heat.

Now, what I want to happen here is I want to cook this kind of gently, and I want to pull some of the excess salt out of there.

Otherwise, the lardons are gonna eat a little too salty for the salad.

So I'm just gonna wait for this to come up to a boil and then I'll set a 5-minute timer.

So while I'm waiting for this to come up to a boil, I'm gonna go wash those greens.

So now that this has come up to a boil, I'm gonna set a 5-minute timer, and we'll just let that hang out and cook.

So it's been five minutes.

I'm gonna shut that off.

Grab a strainer and get rid of all of that extra water.

Now that the pancetta has cooked, I just want to fry it up very gently.

I'm not looking for a ton of color.

And what I've got is 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil.

I just want to add a little bit of texture to the exterior.

And this time, we're cooking at just medium-low heat.

I want to give this a couple of stirs occasionally.

It should take about five minutes to get the right color on here, and it's a very light brown.

So while this is going, I need to mince a shallot for the vinaigrette.

So this shallot's a little bit large, and I only need a tablespoon, so I'm only gonna cut up about half of this.

So I'm using the heel of my palm to hold the shallot steady.

And I don't want to push really hard on there because that'll make it difficult to get the knife through.

You just want to hold the shallot in place as you draw the knife through the shallot.

And then I'm using the heel of my knife and then come back across.

And that is definitely more than a tablespoon.

Right.

So this looks great.

The pancetta is just slightly browned and that's perfect.

If we let it get too much darker, that pancetta is gonna get kind of tough.

Now, this is a lot of fat, and we don't -- I mean, I want to eat it, but we shouldn't eat it.

That'll be too much.

I'm just gonna drain it off.

And I want to use 2 tablespoons of this fat for the dressing.

And I'm building that dressing right in this pan.

So I want to add a tablespoon of that shallot.

And I'm just gonna cook this really gently for about 30 seconds.

It's just gonna pull that, like, raw edge off of the onion.

Now, to help this cool off a little bit so that the shallots don't get too dark, I'm gonna add 2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar.

And the last ingredient for our dressing is some Dijon mustard.

I'm using 4 teaspoons, and it's just gonna add a nice bit of heat to kind of brighten up the salad.

And I'll just stir this in.

I'm not looking to get it fully emulsified or anything.

It's not that kind of dressing.

It just needs to be really well mixed.

Okay, so this looks pretty good.

Not perfectly uniform, but that's okay.

While this is still nice and hot, I'm gonna pour it directly onto our frisée.

The warm dressing is going to wilt that frisée and soften it, tenderize it.

It's gonna be great.

Just give this a quick toss.

Great.

So this will hang out right here, and we'll start working on the last component of the salad -- the soft-cooked eggs.

So for our soft-poached eggs, I've got 6 cups of water going in that Dutch oven back there, and I'm just waiting for it to come up to a boil.

While I wait, I'm gonna prep the eggs.

So I've got two eggs here.

I'm just gonna crack them into this colander.

What's happening is there are two different types of whites in an egg.

There's kind of the loose, runny white, and then there's the thicker stuff that kind of cradles the yolk.

And what I want is to ditch all of that runny stuff, because as soon as that hits the water, it kind of spreads really quickly, it feathers, and it's stringy.

It's a little tough.

It's just not pleasant to eat.

So instead of trying to contain it, I'm just gonna ditch it.

It takes about 20 to 30 seconds for the eggs to drain.

This is looking pretty good, so I'll just carefully tilt this into a measuring cup and now we just wait for our water to come up to a boil.

So step one, shut off the heat.

You don't actually want to boil these eggs.

Next, we want to make sure that that water is seasoned.

So I'm using a teaspoon of table salt here.

And then to help the whites set up quickly so that there is even less spreading, just in case I missed any of that loose white, I'm adding a tablespoon of distilled vinegar.

I'm just gonna take these eggs.

And I want the spout to be just above the surface level of the water so that the eggs don't have far to fall.

By using a measuring cup to add the eggs to the water, I can make sure there's a lot of space between each one so they don't run together.

Next up, lid goes on.

3-minute timer... [ Timer beeping ] ...and they'll be perfect.

So it's been three minutes.

Let's have a peek.

These look great.

That white is nice and compact, it's firm to the touch, and my yolks are still very tender.

I like a really runny yolk, so I tend to kind of go easy on the cook.

So let's get these eggs out of that water so they don't overcook.

And I want to give these a nice blot, make sure they're dry because nobody needs a watery salad.

Great.

So last step.

You can see that our frisée is still, you know, it does not look wilted for all that it's been hanging out with the warm dressing.

And I'm gonna add the chicory now.

It's important to add the chicory at the last minute because it will start to wilt and we don't want that.

Nice toss.

If you have a nice, pretty wooden salad bowl, a big one, this is the time to use it.

I'm just looking for the chicory to be nice and dressed.

The frisée is great as it is, and this looks pretty good.

I'm gonna give it a quick taste.

Oh, it's so good, but it could use a little bit of salt and pepper.

While I'm at this, I'm gonna season those eggs as well.

Okay, let's eat.

Doesn't that look awesome?

So the best part of the salad is that first bite, because you get to break into that yolk.

Nice and runny, and it's just an extra bit of richness for the greens.

This is so good.

The richness of the yolk and that pancetta really cuts the bitterness of the greens, and you get this kind of tingle of heat from the mustard and pepper.

I love this salad.

For a fantastic Salade Lyonnaise, be sure to poach your pancetta, tenderize the tougher greens with the warm dressing, and add your delicate greens at the very last minute.

So from "America's Test Kitchen" at home, an amazing Salade Lyonnaise.